It's not just the event that stays with you, it's the meaning your nervous system attached to it in that moment. When an experience is too overwhelming to process at the time, that meaning can get stuck, sometimes frozen at the exact age it happened. A small trigger years later can bring all of it rushing back at once, overriding your reactions, or getting in the way of decision making and behaviour.

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You may have had the experience of talk therapy, and understand where your trauma is coming from, but still feel stuck reliving it. EMDR bypasses that story and works with the brain and nervous system directly, so what's frozen can finally move.